June 9, 2017
—Alex Kurtzman’s “The Mummy” reboots a franchise I would gladly have dispensed with from the start. The lackluster new incarnation, starring Tom Cruise as a wisecracking Army sergeant who loots antiquities from Iraqi war zones, is a generic summer time-killer that, alas, is positioned to bequeath sequels into the foreseeable future. Just what we all need right now – another sagging tentpole production with nothing under the tent.

Cruise’s Nick Morton and his Army buddy, Chris (Jake Johnson), using a map filched from English archeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), discover an Egyptian coffin, far from its Mesopotamian origins, buried in a pool of mercury. Before long, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella, who is not bad), the sole heir to Egypt’s throne before her pharaoh father spoiled everything by siring a son, appears on the scene – mummified, sort of, but still game, and fixated on Nick as her “chosen one."

Much mediocre CGI warfare ensues, featuring only one effective sequence: Chris attempting an underwater rescue of Jenny while pursued by a squadron of zombies. Zombies figure big in “The Mummy.” They have no more life than the movie itself. Grade: D+ (Rated PG-13 for violence, action, and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity.)